From John-Boy to Atticus Finch: Richard Thomas a natural for ‘Mockingbird,’ coming to KC

What if John-Boy Walton had become a lawyer rather than a writer?

Chances are the fictional character from the 1970s TV show “The Waltons” would have turned out a lot like Atticus Finch, the fictional character from the 1960 novel and 1962 movie “To Kill a Mockingbird” — an honorable, trustworthy family man who always tried to do the right thing.

So perhaps it is appropriate that Richard Thomas, the original John-Boy, was cast as Atticus Finch in the national tour of “To Kill a Mockingbird,” which will run Oct. 24-29 at the Music Hall to open PNC Broadway in Kansas City’s 2023-24 season.

“He’s an absolutely, absolutely sublime Atticus and a really beautiful human being,” said Jacqueline Williams, who plays Calpurnia in the drama. The Finches’ family cook takes on a greatly expanded role in Aaron Sorkin’s stage play about a Black man falsely accused of rape in the 1930s Jim Crow South.

Sorkin, known for the TV show “The West Wing” and the movies “A Few Good Men,” “Moneyball” and “The Social Network,” took “To Kill a Mockingbird” to Broadway in 2018 with Jeff Daniels as Atticus. It became the highest-grossing American play in Broadway history before closing prematurely because of the pandemic.

Thomas, who has been with the “To Kill a Mockingbird” tour since it hit the road in March 2022, said Sorkin has “taken Atticus off the pedestal, and thank God for that.”

“He’s made this Atticus very, very human, a man with a lot to learn and a very teachable person,” Thomas, 72, said by telephone as he battled a head cold during the tour’s recent stop in East Lansing, Michigan. “He’s given him a wonderful sense of humor, and I think warmed him up a bit. It makes him a real pleasure to play.”

It’s a natural progression for the actor who, 50 years later, remains John-Boy in the minds of every audience member of a certain age, especially given that the characters of Atticus Finch and John-Boy Walton are something of literary cousins.

“Spencer’s Mountain,” the book “The Waltons” was drawn from, was published the year after “To Kill a Mockingbird” at a time when literary heroes tended toward virtues such as honor and trustworthiness. Both novels were set in the 1930s, “Spencer’s Mountain” in Virginia and “To Kill a Mockingbird” in Alabama.

Moreover, Harper Lee, author of “To Kill a Mockingbird,” was a huge fan of “Spencer’s Mountain” and its author, Earl Hamner. In fact, a laudatory blurb from Lee fills the back cover of the first edition of the semi-autobiographical “Spencer’s Mountain.” Lee and Hamner died less than five weeks apart in 2016.

Hamner, who also wrote, produced and provided the narration for “The Waltons,” hired Thomas to play John-Boy, who was based on Hamner himself.

“He was marvelous, and as it turned out, he was perfect in the role,” Hamner said years later in an interview with the Archive of American Television. “I often said he made a better John-Boy than I did being me.”

Thomas was only 21 when “The Waltons” debuted in 1972, but he had been acting professionally since 1958, when he made his Broadway debut in “Sunrise at Campobello” as a 7-year-old. The TV show was a huge hit for CBS, and Thomas became fodder for tabloids and fan magazines such as the National Enquirer (“‘The Waltons’ star Richard Thomas: My Real-Life Love Story”) and Tiger Beat (“Richard Thomas: ‘Are YOU Old Fashioned Enough For Me?’”).

“When that kind of success hits you at that age, it can really knock you sideways,” Thomas said. “I was really lucky that by the time that came along I already had a lot of work under my belt, so I could kind of take it in stride.”

He won an Emmy Award for the role in 1973 and has worked steadily since, including several “Waltons” TV movies. Most recently, he played supporting characters in the TV hits “The Americans” and “Ozark” and narrated “A Waltons Thanksgiving” in 2022.

Now he’s taken on the challenge of a character as closely associated with Gregory Peck as John-Boy is with Thomas. Peck won the Oscar for best actor.

“I have a very vivid picture of him in the role,” Thomas said, but he added he hasn’t been unduly influenced by Peck’s Atticus.

“You’re not ever going to give somebody else’s performance. You can only give yours. And it’s a very different time and a very different kind of Atticus. Aaron’s Atticus is not much like Greg Peck’s Atticus at all. And that’s good. Every generation is different.”

Thomas, who last performed in Kansas City with the tour of “12 Angry Men” in 2008 at the Music Hall, said that Sorkin’s version is an adaptation of the book, not the movie, and that the updates are “in keeping with the spirit of Harper Lee’s book, and the story, and the characters.”

“He’s providing a way to look at the issues in the source material through the lens we’re using these days to look at many of these social justice issues as well.”

Among the updates is a deeper relationship between Atticus and Calpurnia.

“You realize how much a part of that family she is,” Williams said of her character. “She and Atticus, they’re more like brother and sister in their relationship. It’s really the central relationship in this piece.

“There’s the history and trust between them that they can argue, they can agree to disagree. They’re very playful with each other, and they’re confidants of each other. There are things that Atticus, as liberal as he is, just can’t possibly understand or know from the Black perspective.”

Also expanded is the role of Tom Robinson, the man defended by Atticus and played by Yaegel T. Welch.

Other updates include having young-looking adult actors play the Finch children, Scout and Jem, and the casting of Mary Badham as Mrs. Henry Dubose, the Finches’ mean neighbor. Badham played Scout in the 1962 movie, earning an Oscar nomination at the age of 10.

‘To Kill a Mockingbird’

7:30 p.m. Oct. 24-27, 2 and 7:30 p.m. Oct. 28, 1 and 6:30 p.m. Oct. 29 at the Music Hall. $38-$126. broadwayinkc.com.